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THE COT^^SGErFTlO:^. 



ALSO 



SPEECHES 

OF THE 

HON. W. D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

IN 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

ON 

THE CONSCRIPTION; 
THE WAY TO ATTAIN AND SECURE PEACE; 

AND ON 

ARMING THE NEGROES. 

WITH A 

LETTER FROM SECRETARY CHASE. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION. 
1863. 





THE DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL ORGAN OF INDIANA TAK- 
ING THE RIGHT GROUND ON THE GREAT aUESTION 
OF THE RETURN OF DESERTERS. 

The following article, which is the leading editorial of the 
Indianapolis Sentinel of March 21, is timely and important. 
We recognize it as a favorable indication, and publish it with 
great satisfaction : — 

ARREST OF DESERTERS. 

We regret to notice that the arrest of deserters by the 
military authorities has been interfered with in several in- 
stances by citizens in various portions of the State. We hope 
that Democrats will not lend themselves or their influence to 
aid soldiers in defeating their just obligations to the Govern- 
ment. Obedience to law is not only a cardinal principle of 
the Democratic party, but it is the best evidence and test of 
good citizenship. With but few exceptions, the army is com- 
posed of men who have voluntarily enlisted in that depart- 
ment of the public service, and with a full knowledge of the 
responsibility they assumed in thus contracting their services 
to the Government. The soldier honestly owes that service 
for the period he has enlisted. Desertion is also a mean crime. 
There is scarcely a circumstance which will make it defensible. 
If desertion is encouraged, and deserters harbored and pro- 
tected from arrest and return to the fulfillment of their obliga- 
tions, the discipline of the army cannot be maintained, and its 
demoralization must follow as a necessary and certain result. 

The penalties of the laws and regulations against desertion 
and deserters, and those who harbor and aid deserters, are 
severe. They are necessarily so. If the honor of the service 
cannot be maintained, and those who have contracted their 
services held to their agreement, it will be useless to attempt 
the organization of armies to protect the public honor and the 
public interests. This proposition is so self-evident that it is 
needless to illustrate it. If there is any just reason why a 
soldier should be released from his contract with the Govern- 
ment, he should seek an honorable discharge, which should be 
granted; but to steal away, or run away from the service, is a 
violation of good honor that should find no encouragement 
whatever; but, otherwise, such faithlessness should be repu- 
diated and rebuked by every good citizen. Obedience to law 
is the only security to person and the rights of property, and 
anarchy must follow a disregard of law and the obligations it 
enjoins. 



THE COI^SCEIPTIOK 



ALSO 



^ SPEECHES 
HON. W. D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

ON 

THE OONSOKIPTION; 
THE WAY TO ATTAIN AND SEOUEE PEACE; 

AND ON 

AEMING THE NEGKOES. 

WITH A 

LETTER FROM SECRETARY CHASE. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

TRIXTED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION, 

1863. 







IN EXCHANQR 



THE CONSCRIPTION. 



This "Act for enrolling and calling out the national forces" 
was framed to be more efficient for war purposes than were the 
existing militia laws, less burdensome upon the treasury and 
the people, and more humane to the poor, who have the aged, 
and infirm, and helpless dependent upon their labor for sup- 
port. These objects, sanctioned by patriotism, economy, jus- 
tice, and humanity, have been attained as nearly as the un- 
equal lot of mankind will permit. This law, enthusiastically 
welcomed by the armies of the Republic, referred to by other 
nations as the highest evidence of the determined purposes of 
the United States Government, dreaded by armed traitors, 
and denounced by rebel sympathizers at the North, bears in 
every section and in every line evidence of the patriotism, 
justice, and humanity of Congress. 

Contrast the provisions of this denounced act with the pro- 
visions of the existing militia laws of the United States, and 
of the militia laws of the several States. By the existing 
militia laws of the United States, the President is authorized 
to call into the service of the National Government the militia 
of the several States. By these laws, and by the laws of the 
States, certain classes of persons are excepted and exempted 
from military duty — from being drafted into the service of the 
United States. These exempts are not the poor, who have 
widowed mothers, aged and infirm parents, motherless infant 
children, or fatherless and motherless young brothers and 
sisters dependent on their labor for support. No, not these ! 
Neither the national laws nor the laws of any State in the 
Union exempt the poor, who have the aged, the infirm, the 

(3) 



helpless dependent upon them. At the call of the Government 
under these laws, they must leave wrdowed mothers, aged and 
infirm parents, fatherless and motherless sisters and brothers, 
and motherless infant children who are dependent on their 
daily toil for support, and be hastened away to the camp and 
the battle-field. 

Who, then, are exempted by the existing militia laws of the 
United States, and of the several States of the Union? Not 
the poor, the dependent sons of toil, but the most fortunate 
and favored of the people — members of Congress, custom- 
house officers and clerks, postmasters and clerks, (a host in 
themselves, whose support comes out of the money of the 
nation,) professors and students in colleges, and ministers of 
the gospel, judicial officers and other officials, Quakers, 
Shakers, and persons who may profess conscientious scruples 
against bearing arms, members of engine companies, hook -and 
ladder companies, or persons otherwise connected with the fire 
department. The Conscription Act, on the other hand, ex- 
empts, in addition to such as are physically or mentally unfit 
for military duty — First, the Vice-President of the United 
States, the Judges of the United States Courts, the heads 
only of the executive departments of the National Govern- 
ment, and the Governors of the several States. 

Second. The only son liable to militaky duty of a 

WIDOW DEPENDENT ON HIS LABOR FOR SUPPORT. 

Third. The only son or aged or infirm parents, or 

PARENTS dependent ON HIS LABOR FOR SUPPORT. 

Fourth. Where there are two or more sons of aged 

OR INFIRM parents SUBJECT TO DRAFT, TUB FATHER, OR IF 
HE BE DEAD, THE MOTHER, MAY ELECT W'HICH SON SHALL BB 
EXEMPT. 

Fifth. The only brother of children not twelve years 

OLD, HAVING NEITHER FATHER NOR MOTHER, AND DEPENDENT 
UPON HIS LABOR FOR SUPPORT. 

Sixth. The father of motherless children under 

TWELVE YEARS OF AGE, WHO ARE DEPENDENT UPON HIS LABOR 
FOR SUPPORT. 



Seventh. Where there are a father and sons in the 

SAME FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD, AND TWO OF THEM ARE IN THE 
MILITARY SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES AS NON-COMMIS- 
SIONED OFFICERS, MUSICIANS, OR PRIVATES, THE RESIDUE OF 
SUCH FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD, NOT EXCEEDING TWO, SHALL BE 
EXEMPT. 

Eiglith. Young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty 
are exempt, for the reason that experience proves that soldiers 
under twenty years of age cannot sustain the burdens of camp 
life as well as men between the ages of twenty and thirty- 
five. 

These exemptions of the Conscription Act (so called) are in 
favor of those upon whose-daily toil the aged, infirm, and help- 
less rely. Is it, as has been charged upon it, making "in- 
famous distinctions between the rich and the poor," to EXEMPT 
THE ONLY SONS OF POOR WIDOWS, and to compel members of 
Congress to fight, procure substitutes, or pay for substitutes? 
to EXEMPT THE ONLY SONS OF AGED OR INFIRM PARENTS DE- 
PENDENT ON THEM FOR BREAD, and compel the whole army of 
custom-house officers, postmasters, and Government clerks to 
fight, procure, or pay for substitutes? to EXEMPT the ONLY 

BROTHERS OF FATHERLESS AND MOTHERLESS LITTLE BROTHERS 
AND SISTERS DEPENDENT UPON THEIR DAILY TOIL FOR SUP- 
PORT? to EXEMPT THE FATHERS OF MOTHERLESS INFANT CHIL- 
DREN DEPENDENT UPON THESE FATHERS' DAILY TOIL FOR SUS- 
TENANCE, and compel State judges, justices of the peace, 
clergymen, and college professors to fight, procure substitutes, 
or pay for substitutes? Shame on the men who misrepresent 
the beneficient provisions of an act passed to uphold the cause 
of our imperiled country ! 

The 13th section of the act in question provides that any 
person drafted and notified to appear at the rendezvous, may, 
on or before the day fixed for his appearance, furnish an ac- 
ceptable substitute to take his place in the draft; or he may 
pay to such person as the Secretary of War may authorize to 
receive it, such sum, not exceeding $300, as the Secretary 
may determine, for the procuration of such substitute, which , 



e 

sum shall be fixed at a uniform rate by a general order made 
at the time of ordering a draft for any State or Territory. 
Any person may furnish, an acceptable substitute to take his 
place in the draft at any price for which he can procure one. 
Every drafted man is at liberty to furnish a substitute at such 
rate as he may agree to pay the substitute; or any drafted 
man may pay such sum, not exceeding $300, as the Secretary 
of War may determine, to procure a substitute. 

The sum to be fixed by the Secretary is not to exceed 
$300. It may be less, it cannot be more. This provision 
was put into the law for the sole and single purpose of keep- 
ing DOWN THE PRICE OF SUBSTITUTES, SO that men of very 
moderate means, and poor men, could more readily obtain 
substitutes. It enables the Secretary to fix the sum which 
will be the price of substitutes. Without this provision, it 
was believed that the price for substitutes would go up at 
once to $1000 or $2000, so that none but rich men could ob- 
tain them. If any drafted man can obtain a substitute for a 
sum less than that fixed by the Secretary, he is at liberty to 
do so. This authority conferred upon the Secretary to fix 
any sum less than $300 was purposely given to check specu- 
lations, to keep down the price of substitutes, and it must in- 
evitably do so. 

Partisan malignity, in its blindness and madness, would per- 
vert a measure framed to protect the very interests of those 
who most need protection into a distinction in favor of the 
rich and against the poor. 

This act for enrolling and calling out the national 

FORCES gives ASSURANCE TO THE WORLD THAT IT IS THE UN- 
ALTERABLE PURPOSE OF THE NATION TO CRUSH OUT THIS 

WICKED REBELLION. Denunciations of its provisions can only 
fire the heart and nerve the arms of traitors, thus putting in 
peril the holy cause of our country, and the precious blood of 
its heroic defenders; and by reviving the waning hopes of the 
rebellion, will render more absolutely necessary the putting 
into execution the draft provided by the act. The only way 
in which it can be averted is by promptly arming the willing 



hands of loyal men in the rebel States, and by immediately 
yielding a united and enthusiastic support to the Government, 
thus speedily and thoroughly crushing the hopes, and effect- 
ually baffling the efforts of the rebels. 



REMARKS OF HON. WM. D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVA- 
NIA, IN REPLY TO THE OPPONENTS OF THE CON- 
SCRIPTION BILL. 

Delivered in the Souse of Representatives, Fehruary 24, 1863. 

Mr. Speaker, the discussion upon this most important bill 
draws to a close. The discussion has, it seems to me, been 
made the occasion for proving, not the dangerous powers of 
the bill, but the necessity for some such provisions as it em- 
bodies, whereby every species of "treasonable practice" may 
be quickly suppressed. 

The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Mallort) mquu-ed this 
morning when or in which of our wars such powers had been 
asked for. When I ask, in return, was the exercise of such 
powers necessary before? Sir, there was little occasion for 
their enactment during our earlier wars. "When a few influen- 
tial men of Pennsylvania during the revolutionary war talked 
as gentlemen have talked on this floor, the executive councils 
sent them far inland into the then remote State of Virginia. 
They were seized, by night or by day, wherever they could be 
found, and forthwith hastened upon their journey thither, and 
the right to the writ of habeas corpus expressly denied them. 
That transaction was approved by George Washington, and 
the Continental Congress passed a bill of indemnity, covering 
all parties concerned in it. There were it is true cow-boys m 
those days in the South, and as this instance shows, a few false 
and craven creatures m the North who sympathized with the 
enemy and prayed "for peace on any terms," but they were 
so few that they dared not hope to be able to debauch the 
sentiment of the army, so few as not to hope, as is now hoped 
by the disloyal managers of the opposition, to be able to para- 
lyze the arm of the Government. 

During the late war, the men who attempted to embarrass 
the Administration charged with its conduct, were overwhelmed 



8 

by public indignation, and the few ■who attempted to interfere 
with the morale of the army were given a summary trial under 
a drum-head court-martial, and executed by order of Andrew 
Jackson. This action called forth the famous Coffin hand-bill, 
the enduring infamy of the author of which some gentlemen on 
the other side appear to emulate. Sir, the right of self-defense 
inheres in every man and in every government, and the bill 
under discussion provides surely and wisely for the main- 
tenance and defense of the Government of the United States 
against traitorous sons in the South and sympathizers with 
traitors in the North — men working in a common spirit to a 
common end: those with force upon the battle-field; these with 
subtle poison that reaches the mind and heart, — with the pere 
verted or invented fact and false conclusion that may seduc- 
from his true fealty the ignorant but enthusiastic citizen and 
patriot. 

The gentleman, in flagrant disregard of the rule of the 
House, said that no man, no single member, was willing at. the 
beginning of this Congress to stand where Thaddeus Ste- 
vens, Elliot, and Lovejoy now stand. It was on the 7th of 
January, 1862, that from this seat I prayed that our Admin- 
istration might be taught speedily to avail itself not only of 
the resources of the North, but those of the enemy, that it 
would strike them in the tender point, that it would throw 
them upon their own resources for a supply of food and cloth- 
ing, as it was its duty to do, by proclaiming protection to every 
loyal man and woman that should come to the standard of the 
country. My language, as I find it in the Globe, was: — "And 
I pray God that it (the Administration) may so far read the 
laws of war as to learn that it is the duty of Congress, the 
generals at the head of the several columns of the array, and 
the Government of the United States, to cut oif all the res 
sources of the rebels now in arms against us. It is the first 
and last law in war. Its thorough enforcement is called for 
by all the promptings of patriotism and humanity, and promise- 
internal and external peace to our distracted country." 

I have always stood where those gentlemen stand on the 
question so inopportunely discussed by the gentleman from 
Kentucky, (Mr. Mallory.) But, for his own purposes, he 
would teach the people of the South, and especially of the 
Border States, that the objects of this war have been perverted, 
that it is no longer waged for constitutional ends or by legal 
means. He says truly that the sense of this House was ex- 



pressed in the resolution of his venerable and distinguished 
colleague, (Mr. Crittenden,) and adds, that the spirit of that 
resolution has been abandoned. Sir, while it was hoped and 
believed that there was some lurking patriotism among the 
controlling minds of the South, and that they might be in- 
fluenced by a conciliatory spirit, we were all willing to accept* 
peace and a restoration of the Union as things then were; 
yes, waiving our right to take advantage of the great wrong 
that had been committed, and overturn the institution that 
instigated it, we said to them, " Come back, and all the past, 
even to this moment, shall be forgotten." How delusive was 
our hope ! What was then is not now. Since then 200,000 
of our brave countrymen sleep their last sleep in Southern soil, 
and over the graves of these murdered Americans I never will 
shake hands and bow and beg pardon of their murderers ; nor 
will the American people. We cannot have indemnity for the 
past, but we demand and will have security for the future. 

I am for exercising all the rights and powers of the Govern- 
ment in this behalf. I am, as I believe the majority of the 
House is, for eradicating, wherever it may constitutionally do 
it, that poison, that subtle poison that engendered this rebellion, 
which made those graves. The gentleman says that the friends 
of the Administration no longer march to the music of the 
Union, that they dance to the music of Greeley, Lovejoy, and 
Stevens. Said he, "the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the 
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, had educated 
them up to his measure." He did my distinguished colleague 
honor overmuch. The events of this era are under the manage- 
ment of no man or set of men. It is to the music of the spheres 
that the patriot army and the country march. Providence is 
the guide. He alone controls the march of events; and the 
music to which the country moves is the spheral strains which 
inspire undying faith and dauntless courage in the cause of 
justice and mercy, and that peace which, resting on these foun- 
dations, shall endure forever. Sir, the music to which we march 
inspires us by recalling the highest glories of the past; its 
seraphic strains breathe forth the hopes and joys of the bright 
and illimitable future which is to follow this night of strife 
and woe. 

Not my colleague, but God has been our instructor. He has 
brought us forward, step by step, until at last we are about to 
enact a law in which we recognize man as man. Nor is the 
bill demanded by the philanthropist alone. Eighteen months 



10 

of providential teachings have so far educated us tLat the most 
stupid have learned that four millions of people on our side 
are better for us than the same four millions warring or work- 
ing against us. 

The bill before us is to stand as law for three years. It is 
'consistent with legislation already on the statute book author- 
izing the President to arm and equip all able-bodied men, irre- 
spective of color, that may be needed for the suppression of 
this rebellion, and it must not be emasculated by adopting the 
amendment of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] and in- 
serting the word ^^tvhite' before men. Let it stand as it is, 
and it will give us all the soldiers we need. 

Mr. Speaker, let me repeat, that it is God who is teaching 
this people and their representatives by his mysterious provi- 
dence. Why, the question is asked, could not this country 
have progressed peacefully as it was progressing? Why must 
this war come? Sir, I know not why, but, in the bitterness 
of a heart, stricken at many points by the loss of friends and 
kindred, and the greater sorrows of others, as it is upon us, 
I hail it as the era of a new and higher birth for man and for 
society. I know not why it is that all great blessings come 
to us through pain and sorrow. It is to the agonies of the 
Garden and the Cross that we owe our sublime faith and im- 
mortal hopes. Who can tell the anguish and pain that are 
compensated by the first cherub smile that plays upon the 
cradled infant's cheek ? And why is it that through the pains 
and lingering torments of the sick-room or the horrors of the 
battle-field that we pass from cares and sorrow to the better 
and happier world? I cannot explain God's providence, but 
I do note its visible fruits, and am taught to behold in the 
agony of my country the sure presage of a new and higher 
life for her. 

"Pass this bill," exclaims the gentleman, "press onward, 
press onward, and I will invoke revolution." No, sir, let me 
not do him injustice; he said, "I will hail revolution." What 
does he mean ? Does he mean to say, from his desk in this 
House, that if we dare to pass this bill he and- his friends will 
resist it by force ? If that be his meaning, I tell him that the 
sons of Pennsylvania who marched to protect his home, and 
the homes of other Kentuckians, and who now sleep there in 
green mounds, have not died in vain, and that their graves are 
sacred shrines, dear to the heart of the people of Pennsylvania, 
which they never will consent to visit in a foreign land. Let 



11 

his hail inaugurate a new attempt at revolution, and the North- 
ern army that has protected him and his will clear the earth 
of him and them. I deal not in threats, but in this hour of 
our country's peril it is not for us to he too nicely careful of our 
language, when we hear from the other side the cry of "peace 
on any terms," and are told what the people of this or that 
State will not stand, and finally, that if we do not yield to a 
despotic minority, they will hail revolution. 

The gentleman from New York, [Mr. Steele,] in the midst 
of patriotic protestations, echoes the strain, saying we do not 
want an abolition war, we have supplied all the men we have 
been asked for. Who does want an abolition war, or wherein 
does this bill propose to make one ? 

The gentleman says that he and his friends do not like the 
way "the machine is being run." I suppose not. Men who 
denounce every measure by which it is proposed to save the 
Republic are not likely to approve the manner in which the 
machine has been run lately. 

The Richmond Enquirer agrees with the gentleman and 
those with whom he labors in the endeavor to poison the popu- 
lar mind, that " the machine is running in the wrong direc- 
tion." Let it speak for itself. The coincidence of opinion 
between the gentleman and it is the more remarkable, as he is 
a prime patriot and its editor is a first-class traitor. 

I read from the Richmond Enquirer of the 10th inst. ; — 

"THIRD STAGE OF THE WAR. 

"We have fairly entered upon the third stage indicated by the Presi- 
dent in his message, namely, that of a war for subjugation and extermina- 
tion. The people of this Confederacy, isolated and shut up from all the 
world, have now to encounter the most horrible and demoniac effort for 
the assassination of a whole race that history has yet recorded, or we 
believe will ever have to record till history grows gray. For it is not 
every century, it is not every ceon, that shows the world a Yankee nation. 
Yes, the Confederate people have now at last to strip for battle — it is a 
people that must this time very literally conquer or die. 

" No doubt it would be agreeable to believe that this last stage of the 
war will soon be over, and must end in the speedy destruction of our 
intended murderers. But look round the map of the Confederacy, and 
judge if we can soothe ourselves with this belief. In the very heart of 
the country our gallant sentinel of the Mississippi — heroic little Vicks- 
burg — has sustained, indeed, and baffled two tremendous sieges ; but a 
third time her citizens see pouring in around them from the North and 
the West enormous masses of the beleaguering foe ; iron floating batteries 
again crowd down upon her; and, even as you read these words, two 
hundred heavy guns may be thundering upon her defenses, a hundred 
thousand men may be pressing to the storm of her ramparts. Again 



12 

she will drive them off, perhaps, and remain the famous maiden city of 
this hemisphere, the bulwark of the West; s'b be it! But the vision we 
see on the Mississippi does not look very like exhaustion or despair on 
the part of the foe just yet. 

"And again, look to the mouth of the mighty river. New Orleans is 
not a maiden city; alas! ihe base rag that has so often been rent and 
trampled before Richmond and before Vicksburg flies from all the towers 
of that deflowered city. Hordes of hungry Yankees, armed to the teeth, 
sit in the shade of her orange groves, and station negro guards over the 
mansions of her noblest citizens. All her best and fairest have to lament 
every day that their goodly city had not been laid in ashes before it 
became a haunt of obscene creatures. No sign of relaxation there ! 
And, but a short way off". Mobile, by the shores of her spacious bay, 
keeps diligent watch and ward, expecting, in the light of each morning 
Bun, to see the thrice accursed stars and stripes gleaming through the 
smoke of a bombarding squadron. All along the Gulf, and around the 
coast of Florida, this omnipresent enemy, who is said to have just been 
playing his last card, is shutting up every river and planting his guns on 
every strong place. Savannah, shut in from the sea by Fort Pulaski, in 
the hands of the same inveterate Yankee, listens for the first boom of the 
artillery that is to level her walls with her sandy soil ; and Charleston, 
grimly calm, but with beating heart, stands waiting the onset of the 
great armada. 

" Those few acres of old Oyster Point, it seems, already swept and 
devastated by conflagrations, are to be the object and the prize of the 
most potent armament by far that American waters have ever seen. 
This very moment, it may be, the black Monitor batteries are steaming 
between Sumter and Moultrie. No signs of relaxation, of discourage- 
ment and despair in the enemy here ! Pass further, and you will find 
the whole coast from Charleston to Norfolk, and every river to the head 
of tide-water, and every creek and sound formed by the sea islands, 
swarming with their gunboats and transports, ready to pour in masses 
of troops wherever there is a chance of plunder, bridge burning, and 
general havoc. 

" From Norfolk all around by Chesapeake and Potomac, we are guarded 
by gunboats, and no living thing (save skulking smugglers) suffered to 
enter or go out. On the Rappahannock two hundred thousand men wait 
for a drying wind to move 'on to Richmond' once more, led by a genuine 
apostle of extermination. At last the savage Abolitionists of Massa- 
chusetts have the right man in the right place. Heretofore they have 
rather wished the defeat of Lincoln's generals on the Potomac, because 
they seemed to be soldiers and not thieves or assassins; but with Hooker 
they feel at home; under Hooker they count upon owning Southern 
plantations and giving law to Southern vassals, 'i'o -possess himself of 
the property of others, a genuine Yankee will, perhaps, even fight. 

"And Northwestern Virginia is desolated by Milroy and his men; and 
Kentucky and the half of Tennessee, the richest and fairest lands of all 
the West, are entirely in the clutch of the enemy, while the rivers bring 
them up fleets of transports ; and Rosecrans, with another large army, 
threatens to sweep all opposition from his path and join the other brigands 
who are crowding upon Vioksburg. 

"Where, in all this wide circuit, does the invasion seem to be fainting 
or giving ground ? All round the border, and in the very heart of the 



13 

Confederacy, the foot of the enemy is planted and his felon flag flies ; 
and it means subjugation and extermination. It is, indeed, the third 
stage of the war, and we believe the last; but the struggle will be des- 
perate. If it be the ' last card,' it is one on which the stake is life or 
death, honor or shame — either our name and nation will be extinguished 
in a night of blood and horror, or else a new sovereignty, the newest, 
fairest, proudest, will take her seat among the powers of the earth, with 
the applause of man and the blessings of Heaven." 

I do not wonder that those who find in the Internal Revenue 
Bill a mere means of extending the corrupt patronage of the 
Government, and in the Bank Bill and the bill now before 
the House only the unconstitutional agencies of unconstitu- 
tional and despotic power, should, in view of the Richmond 
Enquirer's complaints, feel that the machinery of the Govern- 
ment is running a little wrong. 

But let me briefly turn to the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. 
Cox.] 

In the course of the tirade against the Administration and 
its policy, misrepresenting both, he indulged his sportive mood 
by quoting an alleged private letter of the dead Douglas. Oh, 
that Douglas lived to-day, how would he rebuke men who make 
such speeches and gloss them over with his name ! He says 
there was a letter from Senator Douglas showing that a com- 
promise would have been made had it not been essential to the 
Republicans to drive certain gentlemen from the Senate, in order 
to secure the confirmation of certain men whom the President 
desired to nominate to high offices, such as Schurtz, Clay, etc. 
Senator Douglas was a truthful man. Let me answer the 
gentleman from the columns of the Globe, and let the Demo- 
cratic Senator from California, [Mr. Latham,] and the fit 
successor of the sage and hero of the Hermitage, vindicate 
history and the buried Senator from their foul aspersion. 

The speech of this grand old "pro-consul," as some gentle- 
men on the other side delight in calling military governors 
and successful generals, will be found in the 46th volume of 
the Globe. I quote from page 487. Senator Johnson said: — 

"The Senator told us that the adoption of the Clark amendment to 
the Crittenden resolutions defeated the settlement of the questions of 
controversy; and that, but for that vote, all could have been peace and 
prosperity now. We were told that the Clark amendment defeated the 
Crittenden compromise, and prevented a settlement of the controversy. 
On this point I will read a portion of the speech of my worthy and 
talented friend from California, [Mr. Latham ;] and when I speak of 
him thus, I do it in no unmeaning sense. I intend that he, not I, shall 
answer the Senator from Delaware. I know that sometimes, when gen- 



14 

tlemen are fixing up their pretty rhetorical flourishes, they do not take 
time to see all the sharp corners they may entounter. If they can make 
a readable sentence, and float on in a smooth, easy stream, all goes well, 
and they are satisfied. As I have said, the Senator from Delaware told 
us that the Clark amendment was the turning-point in the whole matter; 
that from it had flowed rebellion, revolution, war, the shooting and im- 
prisonment of people in different States — perhaps he meant to include 
my own. This was the Pandora's box that has been opened, out of 
which all the evils that now afflict the land have flown. Thank God, I 
still have hope that all will yet be saved. My worthy friend from Cali- 
fornia, [Mr. Latham,] during the last session of Congress, made one of 
the best speeches he ever made. I bought five thousand copies of it for 
distribution, but I had no constituents to send them to, [laughter;] and 
they have been lying in your document-room ever since, with the excep- 
tion of a few, which I thought would do good in some quarters. In the 
course of that speech upon this very point, he made use of these re- 
marks : — 

'"Mr. President, being last winter a careful eye-witness of all that 
occurred, I soon became satisfied that it was a deliberate, willful design, 
on the part of some representatives of Southern States, to seize upon the 
election of Mr. Lincoln merely as an excuse to precipitate this revolu- 
tion upon the country. One evidence, to my mind, is the fact that South 
Carolina never sent her Senators here.' 

"Then they certainly were not influenced by the Clark amendment. 

'"An additional evidence is, that when gentlemen on this floor, by 
their votes, could have controlled legislation, they refused to cast them 
for fear that the very propositions submitted to this body might have an 
influence in changing the opinions of their constituencies. Why, sir, 
when the resolutions submitted by the Senator from New Hampshire 
[Mr. Clark] were offered as an amendment to the Crittenden proposi- 
tions, for the manifest purpose of embarrassing the latter, and the vote 
taken on the 16th of January, 18G1, I ask, what did we see? There were 
fifty-five Senators at that time upon this floor in person. The Globe of 
the Second Session, Thirty-sixth Congress, part 1, page 409, shows that 
upon the call of the yeas and nays immediately preceding the vote on the 
substituting of Mr. Clark's amendment, there were fifty-five votes cast. 
I will read the vote from the Globe : — 

'"Yeas — Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cameron, Chandler, 
Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, 
Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, 
Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson — 25. 

'"Nays — Messrs. Bayard, Benjamin, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, 
Crittenden, Douglas, Fitch, Green, Gwin, Hemphill, Hunter, Iverson, 
Johnson, of Arkansas, Johnson, of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, 
Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Pugh, Eice, Saulsbury, Sebas- 
tian, Slidell, and Wigfall— 30. 

"'The vote being taken immediately after on the Clark proposition 
was as follows: — ■ 

"'Yeas — Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cameron, Chandler, 
Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, 
Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, 
Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson — 25. 

'"Nays — Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Critten- 



15 

den, Fitch, Green, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson, of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, 
Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Pugh, Rice, Saulsbury, 
and Sebastian — 23. 

'"Six Senators retained their seats and refused to vote, thus themselves 
allowing the Clark proposition to supplant the Crittenden resolution by 
a vote of twenty-five to twenty-three. Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana; Mr. 
Hemphill and Mr. Wigfall, of Texas ; Mr. Iverson, of Georgia; Mr. John- 
son, of Arkansas ; and Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, were in their seats, but 
refused to cast their votes.' 

"I sat right behind Mr. Benjamin, and I am not sure that my worthy 
friend was not close by, when he refused to vote ; and I said to him, 'Mr. 
Benjamin, why do you not vote? Why not save this proposition, and 
see if we cannot bring the country to it ?' He gave mo rather an abrupt 
answer, and said he would control his own action without consulting me 
or anybody else. Said I, ' vote, and show yourself an honest man.' As 
soon as the vote was taken, he and others telegraphed Sooth 'We can- 
not get any compromise.' Here were six Southern men refusing to vote, 
when the amendment would have been rejected by four majority if they 
had voted. Who, then, has brought these evils on the country? Was 
it Mr. Clark? He was acting out his own policy ; but with the help we 
had from the other side of the Chamber, if all those on this side had laeen 
true to the Constitutioa and faithful to their constituents, and had acted 
with fidelity to the country, the amendment of the Senator from New 
Hampshire could have been voted down, the defeat of which, the Senator 
from Delaware says, would have saved the country. Whose fault was 
it? Who is responsible for it? I think that is not only getting the nail 
through, but clinching it on the other side, and the whole staple com- 
modity is taken out of the speech. Who did it? Southern traitors, as 
was said in the speech of the Senator from California. They did it. They 
wanted no compromise. They accomplished their object by withholding 
their votes ; and hence the country has been involved in the present diffi- 
culty." 

Mark you, Mr. Speaker, the men who defeated that com- 
promise in the spirit of falsehood and misrepresentation which 
engendered this rebellion, and which is here and now trying 
to sustain it, walked out of the Hall and telegraphed to the 
people they had infuriated that they could get no com- 
promise. 

Sir, this bill is important in another aspect. 

There are powers beyond the Atlantic: France is there; 
England is there; and the passage of this bill will be an 
announcement to all governments which feel disposed to 
meddle in our affairs that if they attempt it, they will have 
an organized nation to meet. We will pass this bill not as 
a threat; we will pass it because the exigencies of the times 
require it, and the knowledge that we have passed it will 
cross the Atlantic in twelve days. Their statesmen will see 
that they had better keep their fingers out of our pie, lest 



16 

they may find concealed therein a steel strap with sudden and 
fatal spring. Let the world know that we have invested the 
Government with the power, for three years to come, of call- 
ing every able-bodied man, who has not upon himself the sup- 
port of a widowed mother, or brothers or sisters of tender age, 
to the defense of their country. Let them understand that the 
clergyman is to leave his desk, the laborer the field, the mine, 
and the workshop, the lawyer his ofiice, and the legislator his 
seat, and every other man his vocation. Let them know that 
we have made up our minds, one and all, to march to the de- 
fense of justice and liberty, home and country; and that we 
will, under the Constitution, and by virtue of those powers 
sneered at as the war power — those rights of a belligerent 
which superadd themselves to the ordinary functions of the 
Government whenever it engages in war — maintain the integ- 
rity of our Government ; that we will, if need be, bring every 
able-bodied man, irrespective of his color or condition, into 
the field; and that the foreigner who dares, with unfriendly 
Trish, invade our shores shall die ; and they will feel that we 
will not only conquer the rebellion, but that we offer a fruit- 
less field for intervention. 

This is what this bill proposes to do. I care not whether 
the clause touching "treasonable practices" be in or out of it. 
I act upon the theory that self-defense inheres in the Govern- 
ment as it does in man, and that those to whom the Govern- 
ment is for the time confided should be empowered to protect 
it, and are bound to punish all who attempt to do it harm, 
whether their intent is manifested by action or by the language 
of conspiracy leading to acts elsewhere. It is the law that one 
conspirator may be in one State, and another in another, and 
another in still another State, and all be responsible for the 
language used by each. No question of jurisdiction arises 
there. A common intent makes all who have promoted it 
guilty of the overt act. My judgment is, that where it be- 
comes apparent that a man, with a rebellious heart, and sym- 
pathies with those who are in arms against the Government, is 
by letter or word communicating with or aiding them, he 
should be dealt with as you deal with a rattlesnake when you 
hear the rattle near your heel, or as you deal with a copper- 
head when you perceive its venomous fang approaching your 
throat. You are not to wait until the sting is in you before 
you crush the reptile. You must do it while you can save 
your own life. Herein I charge the Government with having 



17 

been in default. If the example of our revolutionary sires 
and of Andrew Jackson had been followed, and some of the 
men who now clamor and whine about their arbitrary arrests, 
and tell how their homes were violated, had been tried, allowed 
five minutes for brief prayer, and then shot or hung, there 
would have been less treasonable practices, and the Govern- 
ment would have found support where it now receives censure. 
Therein is my objection to the course of the Administration; 
and if it were clear that this bill made such conduct on their 
part necessary, 1 should vote for it even more joyously than I 
will to-morrow on its final passage. 



THE WAY TO ATTAIN AND SECURE PEACE. 

Speech of Hon. W. D. Kelley\ of Pennsylvania, delive^-ed in 
the House of Representatives, December 19, 1862. 

Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that before the week closes 
some rejoinder should be made to the various suggestions in 
favor of peace and compromise, and of hostility to the acts 
and policy of the President of the United States, that we have 
been hearing from day to day. 

Permit me to say, sir, that I am in favor of peace. I was 
for peace when I first raised my voice in this House. I was 
then, as I am now, for early and enduring peace — for peace 
on terms honorable to the people of the country, and which 
shall not dishonor the memory of the wise and patriotic men 
who established the independence and unity of our country, 
and ordained its beneficent institutions. 

I am, sir, for peace so secure that it shall prevail forever 
over that broad territory which, at the last Presidential elec- 
tion, was covered by thirty-four State constitutions, and that 
which, as territory, belongs to the United States, but which 
will come under the jurisdiction of States whose people shall 
know no sovereignty save that which resides in the Constitu- 
tion as it came to us from the fathers. How, sir, can such a 
peace be attained? It can only be done by remembering, 
first and always, that the supr.eme law of the land is the Con- 
stitution of the United States; and that we, as members of 
this House, are sworn to support that Constitution ; and that 
the President of the United States is sworn to preserve, pro- 



18 

tect, and defend it. My theory is, sir, that rights and duties 
are things reciprocal. So long as the people of a State obey 
tlie behests of the Constitution, and live in accordance with 
them, they are entitled to the enjoyment of all constitutional 
rights. So long as they array themselves against them only 
in such force that the marshal and his posse may suppress 
their violent demonstrations, they are entitled to all those 
rights, save as the penal code properly applied may abridge 
them. But when, as has been the case in the so-called se- 
ceding States, they assemble in organic conventions and throw 
ofiF all duty to the Government ; when they abjure loyalty and 
duty, and claim to have established on our soil an independent 
and foreign government; when they attempt in the name and 
by the agency of such alleged foreign government, to create a 
navy, and do assemble armies to contend with the power of 
the Government, and thereby banish our customs and postal 
system, and close our courts, they lose their title to constitu- 
tional rights, and it becomes the duty of the Government, by 
whatever force it may require, to regain possession and control 
of the territory occupied by them, and to rule the people occupy- 
ing it with such hostile purposes, irrespective of State lines, or 
State names, or State institutions, or State constitutions. It 
must maintain the unity of the country ; and if the inhabitants 
will disregard all their duties, it must govern them under the 
power of the Constitution that makes the President Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, 
and that requires him, if so it must be, by military force to 
maintain the supremacy of the Government over every acre of 
our territory. When supreme jurisdiction shall be thus estab- 
lished, we may say to whomsoever may occupy the country, or 
particular portions of it, "Adopt your State constitution, 
whether the one that formerly prevailed or another; open your 
courts, and let the courts of the United States be opened; let 
our customs system and our postal system be enforced; avow 
your allegiance to our Constitution and Government, and as you 
shall perform the duties, enjoy, also, the rights of American 
citizens." 

Gentlemen on the other side seem to forget that sworn duty, 
as well as patriotism and the future welfare and peace of the 
country, demand the maintenance of the unity of our territory, 
and of the supremacy of the power of the United States over 
it in its entirety. These are things that must be maintained, 
if we would avoid standing armies and unceasing war. Where 



19 

all duties under the Constitution are rejected, no rights can be 
claimed, and the Government must be maintained by force. 
That is my position, and it is, I believe, the position of the 
loyal people of the country. When I say loyal, I mean it ; as 
I know no conditions that may accompany its expression. That 
loyalty which is conditional stretches forth a friendly hand to 
treason. Indeed, conditional loyalty is partial treason. The 
President's emancipation proclamation has been the subject of 
invective and denunciation this morning, and it has been said 
that no man in the country, save the President of the United 
States, believes that it Avill promote peace. Sir, has territory 
ceased to be territory? Do figures still indicate numbers and 
power? Has the lesser come, by some new influence, to com- 
prehend the greater? For, if it be not so, the enforcement of 
that proclamation will promote peace by aiding in the establish- 
ment of the supremacy of the Government. Has not the ques- 
tion as to whether four millions of stalwart people shall labor 
for us or for those vrith whom we are at war, some importance, 
and a direct bearing on the issue? Will its solution, if it trans- 
fer them from one side to the other, have no influence upon the 
power of the rebellion ? I believe, with the President, that it 
will. There are four millions of brawny right arms, mostly 
dark-colored, but many of them, through the fell influence of 
the hell-born institution of slavery, fair as our own; there are 
four millions of people reluctantly giving their daily toil to the 
support of this rebellion : and it is proposed by the President 
to invite them, on the Ist'of January next, as wisdom would 
have done more than a year ago, to withhold their labors from 
that cause, and bestow them, as they desire to, upon the cause 
of patriotism, freedom, and peace, under the starry flag of our 
country. Who will tell me that the transfer of the labor of 
these people will have no influence in suppressing the rebel- 
lion? 

But, asked the eloquent gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr, 
Ybaman,] Who ever heard of a belligerent party taking private 
property on land? Let me ask him a question: Who ever 
heard of a belligerent prohibiting the people of the opposing 
power from rallying to his standard? He speaks of property, 
and I speak of men. It is a great thing, sir, to be a man. 

Mr. Yeaman. I answer the gentleman by saying that 
slaves, so far from being persons in the eye of the laws of 
nations, as he treats them, while they are actually persons, 
are, by that Constitution which he has sworn to support, the 



20 

pi'ivate property of private individuals, and that neither under 
the Constitution, nor under the laws of nations, can you take 
private property on land as an act of war. 

Mr. Kelley. I take issue with the gentleman there, and if 
he will say that they are not designated in the Constitution as 
"persons," or point me to the clause in which they are desig- 
nated as property, I will yield the point. The Constitution 
that I have sworn to support tells me that they — yes, the 
mothers, the fathers and the children all — are "PERSONS held 
to service." They are persons so held by virtue of that Con- 
stitution which has been spurned and trampled and spit upon, 
and yet he asks that those who have heaped these indignities 
upon that sacred instrument shall enjoy to the last iota the 
rights of loyal men under it. Did sane man ever utter so 
preposterous a proposition before? It is the service of these 
people we need. The proclamation invites them to our stand- 
ard. He characterizes them as property. I say, with the 
Constitution, that they are persons, and as such will welcome 
them to our support. Their advent to freedom will exclude 
the necessity of the further draft or conscription of our sons 
and brothers. 

Sir, I was remarking that it is a great thing to be a man, 
in contrast with horses, cows, and other cattle with which these 
poor people are habitually classified, and to which they have 
been assimilated by brutalizing laws. Man chains the light- 
ning, makes the sun his servant, whitens the ocean with sails 
— his messengers to the poles in quest of knowledge — burdens 
its great waves with the commodities which his genius and toil 
have produced and which he is exchanging for others, the pro- 
ducts of distant lands, more valuable to him. From the con- 
flicting elements, fire and water, he generates a vapory power 
that almost annihilates space, and practically removes mount- 
ains and levels valleys; and at the close of a life of usefulness, 
upon the sick-bed, he remembers and reviews the past, cheers, 
counsels, and blesses those about him, and, looking to heaven, 
feels that with God he is to live forever. The gentleman looks 
upon these millions of persons as property — so do bad institu- 
tions pervert gentle and generous natures. I say, sir, they 
are capable of all that ennobles man, and all that endears 
woman to man, and all that opens to either the great hereafter 
and its blessed hopes. It is of these women, these children, 
these men, I speak, and I say that he can point to no case in 
which a belligerent has refused the aid of such as these when 



21 

engaged in a war sucli as that which now engrosses and ex- 
hausts the energies of this country. Sir, the only thing about 
the President's proclamation that struck me as amiss was, that 
it was not, like the lightning, to take instant effect, and that 
its beneficent result should be postponed to so distant a day. 
Are these people, or the relation in which they stand to those 
who hold them to service, like cotton, leather, railroad depots, 
bad whisky, and other supposed analogous things suggested 
by the gentleman from Kentucky, yesterday ? No, no. Trace 
back the laws of war, so elab9rately described by the gentleman 
from Maryland [Mr. Crisfield] to-day, and you will find that 
the invading force not only has always welcomed acquisitions 
from the ranks of the enemy, but that, in the good old days 
of chivalry, a herald invariably proceeded to the gates of a 
besieged town and ofi'ered immunity and protection to all who 
would join the invading power. This chivalric example the 
President's proclamation pledges him to follow on the coming 
in of the glad new year. Let us hail the auspicious day ! 

I come back to the question with which I started. Will the 
gentleman from Mai-yland, [Mr. Crisfield,] will the gentle- 
man from Kentucky, [Mr. Yeaman,] will the gentleman 
from Illinois, [Mr. Richardson,] will any one of these gen- 
tlemen, or of their learned coadjutors, say that it is not the 
duty of the President to maintain the unity of the country 
and the supremacy of the Constitution over all our territory? 
And if they will not say that, is there one of them who will 
say that he was wrong in thus inviting four millions of the 
people of the country to abandon rebellion and rally to the 
standard of loyalty, peace, and the Constitution? No one of 
them, I apprehend, will say so. Than this, in my judgment, 
mere sympathy with the rebellion could no further go. Gen- 
tlemen deny that slavery was the cause of this war. Let me 
ask them which one of the non-slaveholding States, from the 
first, has proposed to participate in it, and which one of the 
slaveholding States has been free from a desire to participate 
in it, or from overt acts of rebellion ? Why is it that prevail- 
ing loyalty and treason find their boundaries just here, if 
slavery be not the controlling influence ? I give praise to the 
Border States for all they have done on the side of the coun- 
try; but I remember that the first of the troops from my State 
to find service found it in the lower part of little Delaware; I 
remember that Marylanders were the first to shed the blood of 
New England in this unholy war; I remember that it is but 



22 

recently, if indeed the question be at all settled, that Ken- 
tucky has been able to say with assurance that she has given 
more soldiers to the Union than to the rebel army. 

All honor and glory to the men of East Tennessee. The 
heroic devotion to the Constitution they have exhibited, and 
the barbarous cruelties they have endured, make a chapter 
which even the people of the Southern States will, long years 
hence, dwell on, perhaps with mingled pride and pain, but with 
more interest than on any other in American history. We 
know how terribly that State has been ravaged by the prev- 
alence of the rebellion within its limits. And Missouri, which 
has not only elected unconditional loyalists, but unconditional 
emancipationists to this House, has also been the bloody bat- 
tle-field in which Missourians have been engaged in either 
army. If it be not true, sir, that slavery is the root of this 
rebellion, I ask some inspired man to indicate its moving 
cause, for human wisdom cannot detect it elsewhere. 

Now, can it be possible, Mr. Chairman, that the only right 
so secured on earth that men cannot abjure it, nor govern- 
ment divest them of it, even to save itself in death struggle, 
is the right of holding fellow-beings in bondage? The propo- 
sition that we have not the right to invite these slaves to free- 
dom and our standard involves just this theory — that the rebels 
cannot by the most flagrant treason divest themselves of the 
right to hold these people in bondage; that the people cannot 
acquire freedom for themselves, and that no power in the Con- 
stitution, or in the war power, or deducible from history or 
philosophy, can relieve them from the duty of assisting the 
enemies of the country to destroy its life. Let the arguments 
be expressed as they may, with all the eloquence and elegance 
with which care and time have clothed them in the mouths of 
the gentlemen from Kentucky and Maryland, [Messrs. Yea- 
man and Crisfield,] they come to this. And until gentle- 
men can demonstrate this extraordinary proposition, they can- 
not impair the force of the President's proclamation, in a9- 
cordance, as it is, with all law and all history, with the best 
impulses of humanity, and the spirit of our charter of freedom, 
and with the growing tendency of our age. The gentleman 
from Maryland asks, "will this bring peace? Will the South 
ever consent to come in under such an arrangement?" Sir, I 
do not propose to, nor ought the Government to ask the South 
on what terms it will come in. What the Government ought 
to do, and what I trust it will do, is tp go straight forward 



23 

and establish its /power by crushing out all armed resistance, 
and when that is done, let it govern the region as a Territory, 
if the people will not establish their own government. In this 
condition let the contumacious remain; but whenever they 
will establish governments for themselves, adopt State consti- 
tutions, open the courts, elect Legislatures, and by them and 
the people elect Senators and members of Congress, receive 
them as States into the Union, under such designations as 
they may choose, whether novel or familiar. By this means, 
the forms and vital principles of our Government will be pre- 
served, and peace and constitutional freedom be secured to 
the people of distant ages. Whenever this Government puts 
forth its power to the end that it is bound to assert, there will 
be no question as to whether we mean to violate the Constitu- 
tion or whether the people of the South will accept the con- 
stitutional terms we oifer them. 

"But," said the gentleman this morning, "will the Border 
States tolerate it?" To be sure they will. True, many of 
their citizens may dislike to see the Southern market closed 
against their human cattle; but the rebellion has gone so far 
that, with the 1st of January, slavery dies south of the Border 
State line; and when there is no market for men, women, and 
children, south of Virginia and Kentucky, slavery will have 
small value in any of the Border States. I think I see the 
hand of God in these movements. The events of the times are 
deplorable, indeed; but I know that His providences are in- 
scrutable, and that He can make the folly and wrath of man 
to praise Him. I had long seen that if the Democratic party 
could continue the misrule which it had enforced on the people 
for years, and especially its aggressions upon the rights of the 
laborers of the country, a war would come which would be at 
the door of every man's home. Let us look at it. "A house 
divided against itself cannot stand," quoted my friend from 
Maryland, and with grave deprecation. Did not the leaders 
of the South divide our house? Let us look at it. Go 
where you will, Mr.- Chairman, in our Northern States, you 
find the Constitution of the United States taught in our ele- 
mentary schools, and its democratic spirit everywhere incul- 
cated. You find our youth growing up at the foot of the 
hustings; and the great doctrine taught to every child is: 
"You are as good as any other child. When you come to 
manhood you are to be equal, before the State, of every other 
man. You must watch, guard, and maintain all your rights." 



24 

Thus is the democratic sentiment stinvulated in every school, 
from every lecture stand, at every political gathering ; and 
the political sentiment of the whole North is that of individual- 
ism and equality. And once in seven days comes the Sab- 
bath ; and from hillside and valley, from the lanes and alleys, 
as well as from the broad streets of the city, the children 
gather in the church and Sunday-School: there they learn 
that Christianity enforces while it refines and exalts the doc- 
trines inculcated in the secular school; thus the religious sen- 
timent adds its great power to the political. " These poor are 
as good as you," says the teacher. " These blind, and lame, 
and halt, are the children of your Father ; and inasmuch as 
you do kindness unto them, you perform your duty unto 
Him." Tims the political and religious sentiments blend; 
and theirs is an ever-growing power. Of this we have ample 
evidence all over the North, in the elaborate comforts oi 
our eleemosynary institutions, and the care that is taken of 
our prisoners. The deaf, the dumb, the blind, the insane, are 
cared for. Homes are established for friendless children, 
where the waifs of society, the offspring of the destitute and 
fallen, the pauper and the felon, are cared for and reared in 
these teachings of democracy and Christianity. Thus the sen- 
timent spreads and deepens and grows. 

We have one institution in the North, the outgrowth of the 
perpetual contest between labor and capital, that, could the 
South have carried its domination a little further, Avould have 
made war and bloodshed over the whole country. It consists 
of hardy working men, and is known as the trades' union. We 
at the North live by wages. Our men are familiar with toil ; 
our women do not shrink from it. AVe recognize the maxim, 
as true to-day as the day when it was first written in homely 
English : — 

"Man labors from sun to sun, 
But woman's work is never done." 

We all labor, and wages is the foundation of the welfare and 
abundance of our people. The idea that induced this rebellion 
and the supremacy of which could alone have averted it, was 
that slavery should be not only extended into the new Territories 
of the country, but be domesticated in all the States. It was 
first to be introduced into the States by gentlemen in transitu 
with their colonies. The roll of Mr. Toombs's slaves was to be 
called at the foot of Bunker Hill. We were told in social in- 



25 

tercourse in Philadelphia, of Mr. Yancey, that he would yet 
visit Independence Hall with his slaves. The re-establishment 
of the right to hold slaves all over the country was the purpose 
of the leaders of our "wayward sisters." Nothing less would 
satisfy them. Sir, had that thing been accomplished, the 
trade unions of the North would either have throttled th6 
slaveholders, or, under the influence of the prejudices of caste 
and color, throttled the unhappy slaves — perhaps both. Here 
let mo notice the remark of the gentleman from Maryland, 
that he does not agree with either of the two factions. Of 
what factions does he speak ? The Governments of the Union 
and the Confederacy ? Sir, it is the first time I ever heard the 
Government of the United States denounced as a faction in 
the Halls of Congress. Nor are they who are devoting all 
their energies to the support of the President and the Consti- 
tution to be denounced as a faction. I look in vain through 
this House for two factions. 

I see that the Government, with a million of men, defending 
itself and attempting to enforce its laws over its own dominions, 
has been resisted by a body of armed rebels, and that those 
who sympathize with them, in a greater or less degree, are 
attempting to embarrass it; but other faction I have not been 
able to discover. There were two factions before the war 
broke out. Anterior to that event, there was a body of men 
in the North, who, under Christian impulses, believing it to be 
a duty to labor for the oppressed, and that it is a crime to hold 
men and women in bondage, were willing to violate all civic 
restraints in order to give freedom, culture, and hope to the 
slave. The Abolitionists may have been entitled to that epi- 
thet. And there were Southern men, on the other hand, de- 
termined, as I have indicated, to carry their institutions all 
over the North — to make slavery national by perverting the 
Constitution. There were, then, two factions — devotion to 
right and justice, perhaps not restrained by a proper prudence 
on the one hand; and love of lucre, power, and lust, that 
blotted out all sympathy with humanity, on the other, charac- 
terized the leaders of these factions. 

Had the Southern faction been permitted to dominate until 
the roll of Southern slaves had been called in every county in 
every Northern State, there would have broken out a war — a 
war coextensive with the country, and bloody, at every 
hearthstone — a war which might have been of races, or in 
which those who claimed their human property would have 



26 

suffered with their unhappy and proscribed chattels. The "white 
men of the North, who, from their own hard-earned and 
hoarded wages, will support their unemployed craftsman rather 
than let him work for under wages, would hardly have permitted 
men to work beside them for nothing, and throw their babies 
as property into the scale with their unrequited toil. 

Sir, I believe this war was inevitable. The insane ambition 
and mad, craving lust of the South could be checked alone by 
the results of war. It had closed its ears hermetically against 
the voice of persuasion and reason. And wherever slavery 
existed that ambition and that lust had root. Slavery did 
cause this war. It was destined to cause war, and if not put 
in process of eradication, will involve our posterity in war. Is 
it not fitting, therefore, that the result of the war shall be the 
end of slavery ? The President's proclamation does not pro- 
pose to touch the institution in the Border States. But, as I 
have said, with the market for the, annual crop gone, it will be 
found to be of no more value in Kentucky than it is now found 
to be in Missouri, with her free surroundings. And then we 
will come to what I am prepared to say very few words upon, 
the compensated emancipation proposition of the President. 

The countless millions, the millions of millions that we have 
heard from the other side are to be expended in compensated 
emancipation, will be somewhat reduced when we come to re- 
member that it is only the loyal men of the Border States that 
we will have to deal with. 

Missouri is here, asking $10,000,000 on condition that she 
emancipates her slaves within a little more than a year. In 
God's name, let us give it to her; and if Kentucky and Mary- 
land make the same claim, let us give it to them, and pay our 
full share out of the results of our own hard labor at the 
North. Let us even, by an addition to our already grievous 
burden of taxes imposed by this war — slavery's own offspring 
— share the losses of those whose slaves shall be exalted into 
freemen. 

But, say the gentlemen, the proclamation is unconstitutional 
and illegal, and therefore void. I fear self-interest blinds some 
of them. It is a professional maxim that he has a fool for a 
client who takes charge of his own case. Certainly, no disin- 
terested lawyer will dispute the validity of the proclamation of 
the commander-in-chief inviting to our flag people of the rebel 
States, and promising them protection and the enjoyment of 
constitutional rights. But will the proclamation be enforced? 



27 

Yes, that is certain as the coming of the new year. And I ask 
the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Yeaman] and the gentle- 
man from Maryland [Mr. Crisfield] to pause in the career 
they open by their speeches of yesterday and to-day. Both 
profess, truly *I doubt not, to desire peace ; both assure us 
that they would give utterance to no words that would add to 
the discord of the country. Let them then look the facts in 
the face. Gentlemen, do you not see that time and Provi- 
dence are conspiring with man to put an end to the sole source 
of discord to the country ? Do you not see that it was this in- 
stitution which created division even in the convention that 
formed our Constitution? Do you not see that it has been 
this institution that, from the early settlement of the country 
down to the present time, has produced more 0/ discord than 
all other causes combined ? 

The eloquent gentleman from Kentucky yesterday asserted 
that this rebellion had been ripening from 1798. I agree with 
him that that was one stand-point in its progress. The reso- 
lutions of 1798 marked a new epoch. But if he will go further 
back, he will find, in the debates of the convention which framed 
the Constitution, abundant evidence that slavery was and had 
been a source of discord, and that it came well-nigh prevent- 
ing the establishment of a Union. It has been a source of 
discord only; never was it a blessing to any State or people. 

I have no special love for the negro. I am proud of the 
race of which, by the blessing of God, I am a member. It is 
not for the negro that I plead. The gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Richardson] the other day said that all our sympathy 
and all our action was for the negro, but not one thing did we 
propose to do for the white man. Has he never heard of the 
creature — man ? I speak for man, the child of God, irrespec- 
tive of the color of his skin. 

Look at the baneful influence of slavery upon both white 
and black. You point me to statistics from the North to show 
that poverty and crime prevail with the negro there in undue 
proportion. I point you back to your laws that made it a 
felony to teach him to read and write, by which he might have 
drawn moral precepts and power from the same sources that 
your white children draw them. I point back to the fact that 
you have never allowed him the stimulus of hope. I say that 
your accursed institution, and the cruelty and depression in- 
separable from it, have not only filled our jails with your 
victims, but has brought poverty to both races wherever it has 



28 

existed. Why is it that Massachusetts, whose soil is so thin 
that the rocks peep through nearly every acre, like the knees 
and elbows through a beggar's garment — Massachusetts, which 
cannot raise enough per annum to feed her own people for a 
week — is yet rich and populous, while Maryland, abounding 
in agricultural and mineral resources, to a degree that few 
States can compare with, lags constantly dragging in the 
rear?* 

Why is it that old Virginia, possessing, as she did, the finest 
harbor and leading sea-port of the country at the time of the 
adoption of the Constitution, with nobler rivers than flow through 
any other State; with mineral resources that California her- 
self might envy — untold wealth of iron and coal to encourage 
and stimulate the influx of intelligent and enterprising people 
— lying nearer to the West than other States with fine har- 
bors ; with every blessing that God could lavish upon a terri- 
tory: why is it, I say, that the Old Dominion has sunk down 
and down, until her own children turn from their proud pre- 
eminence and sneer at her decrepitude ? Why, it was because 
your lords of the soil converted man into property. It was 
because you banished hope from your laborers; because you 
did not permit the toiling mother to love the child she had 



* I extract the following from a letter, dated Williamsport, Maryland, 
November 27th, 1862, addressed to me by an officer of a Maryland regi- 
ment. The writer is a native of that State : — 

"While I am w'riting you, I cannot refrain from making a statement 
or two with regard to the topography of this part of Maryland. Doubt- 
less you have a correct knowledge of it generally, and perhaps in detail ; 
but no one can know and appreciate it without traveling over it and 
through it. I have gone over it some in reconnoitering ; but there are, 
of course, many peculiarities which I have not seen. Its fertility is un- 
surpassed, but its chief characteristic seems to be its boundless ivater- 
poiver. To say nothing of the Patapsco, Monocacy, Middletown, Valley 
Creek, Antietam, Conococheague, and many other large streams, you meet 
almost at the end of every mile a stream sufficient to run a gang of mills. 
As I ride over this country, the question comes up in my mind, can it be 
possible that Providence ever designed that these mighty waters should 
run to waste, or that these wonderful natural facilities should always be 
unavailable? And the answer comes back — no! The day will come 
when the busy hum of the factory and the mighty blows of the forge- 
hammer will be heard among these mountains; when the exhaustless 
treasures which are hidden therein shall be brought forth ; and when 
thousands and thousands of glad hearts and merry voices shall shout a 
hearty welcome to a new era. To accept anything else, would be equiva- 
lent to an acknowledgment that God never designed intelligence and 
industry to have any part in mundane affairs." 



29 

borne with assurance that it was her& even through childhood. 
It is this which has made you poor, notwithstanding your 
mineral deposits, your rivers, and your vast agricultural re- 
sources. You have made the negro a curse to you; for God 
never permits a great wrong to go unpunished. 

When, in another year, Congress assembles in these halls, 
there will be no pictures drawn such as the gentlemen have 
furnished us with, of homes desolated or destroyed, women 
ravished, masters murdered by slaves converted into freemen 
and grateful for the greatest blessing of life. The voice of 
thanksgiving and praise will come from every heart to whom 
freedom has been given. It will come from the white man as 
well as the freed slaves, in tones of praise and hallelujah. 

There is, however, one thing the people of the rebellious 
States have to guard against. Of that they must beware. Let 
them not undertake to re-enslave the freed men that the Presi- 
dent of the United States delivers by his proclamation, or woe 
may betide them. Let them not thus invite the horrors of St. 
Domingo. The voice of history admonishes them fully on this 
point. If they do, it will be their act, and not the President's 
or ours. He will make them fre£, and they will rejoice in their 
freedom and be humbly grateful. Not in the hour of joy and 
gratitude, and when singing praises for their deliverance, is 
the tiger let loose in men. As God will have wrought this 
change. He will guide it. But let man attempt to reverse His 
providence, and who shall answer for his folly? 



REMARKS OF MR. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA, ON 
ARMING THE NEGROES. 

Delivered in the House of Representatives, January, 1863. 

Sir, this is, in my judgment, a humane and wise provision 
for hastening the settlement of the war now pending; but gen- 
tlemen on the other side find in it an instigation to servile in- 
surrection, the degradation of our army, and a blot upon our 
legislation and history, which no future glories can wipe out. 
The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky, who first addressed 
us to-day, [Mr. Wickliffe,] denounces Hunter's colored regi- 



30 

ment as a failure. From ■whom did lie, hear that the first regi- 
ment of South Carolina volunteers have proved to be a failure? 
I know General Hunter to be a man of veracity, and the mails 
by the last steamer from the South tell us that he addressed 
that regiment less than a week ago, saying, among other 
things — 

" I am glad to be in the midst of you, glad to have seen so fine an ex- 
hibition of proficiency as you have shown this day. I only wish I had a 
hundred thousand of you to fight for the freedom of the Union." 

He said further — and he has had nearly a year of observa- 
tion, and is a man familiar with military history — 

" I see no reason why you should not make as good soldiers as any in 
the world, and I, trust that upon all occasions you will be found willing 
to do your whole duty." 

The gentlemen from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio have told us 
of the courage and endurance exhibited by colored soldiers and 
sailors in the earlier wars of the country, and on several occa- 
sions in this. May I not remind you that it is now, sir, just a , 
year since I had the honor of calling the attention of the House 
to an extract from a letter from Commodore Dupont ? It was 
when the country was still thrilling with the glory of the naval 
action at Port Royal. I read from that letter the expression 
of his gratitude to the "contrabands" who rallied around him, 
and his declaration that — 

" They serve us with zeal, make no bargains for their remuneration, 
go under fire without the slightest hesitation ; and, indeed, in our cause 
are as ' insensible to fear' as Governor Pickens. Some of them are very 
intelligent." 

But, asks the venerable gentleman from Kentucky, who last 
addressed us, [Mr. Crittenden,] what is the reason for want- 
ing these colored men? This is the reason. It is not only the 
duty of the President to maintain the supremacy of the power 
of the United States over all its territory, but, sir, it is part of 
the providence of God that that supremacy should be main- 
tained. You find that providence written in the topography of 



31 

the country; you find it in the institutions of the country; you 
find it in our national progress and development. Look with 
the eye of the philosopher or statesman over the surface of our 
grand country; scan the lay of its mountains, the courses of 
its rivers, or search our history, and everywhere you will find 
it written by the hand of God that the territory now occupied 
by the United States was destined from the beginning for the 
home of one people, to be presided over by one government. 
It is necessary that this government be maintained in this 
crisis; and it is not fair, to say the least, that, in a war the 
results of which are to bless both North and South — a war 
which, if well fought out, is to bless the generations that shall 
dwell through all time in this vast country of ours, all the 
hardships and privations should be borne by the people of the 
Northern States alone. This bill authorizes the President of 
the United States to call upon the people occupying the terri- 
tory in rebellion for their quota of the army. And why shall 
they not yield it ? Why shall not all that territory send as fair 
a percentage of its people to war for the Union as the State of 
Rhode Island, or its neighbor of grander dimensions. New 
York? Will the gentleman answer that question? Where are 
the South Carolinians rallying under the Union flag; the 
Georgians, the Mississipians, the men of any of the eleven 
States in rebellion? And does he mean to say that the stain 
and infamy of this rebellion shall forever attach to the South — 
that it shall not be wiped out by the loyal men of that section ? 
God forbid it ! We never could dwell together as brethren 
again were it not that we mean to let the men of the South do 
their share in restoring their own government. Let the loyal 
men of the South take a full part in this war, and subjugation 
will be deprived of its power to embitter the future of the 
nation. The North cannot indulge in the exultation of con- 
querors if she shall but have assisted the loyal men of the 
South to maintain a common blessing. 

Sir, there is philosophic and patriotic reason why the Pres- 
ident should bring from all these whilom States their fair quota 



32 

of the army of freedom and the Constitutio"n. But let me, 
waiving these for the time, consider some simple questions. 
Why should it not be done? Is the life of the negro more 
sacred than that of the white man ? Why should not Amer- 
ican Africans encounter the power of the enemy and the ma- 
laria of the swamps? Why should your son, and my brother, 
and our friends die that the negro may live? I do not esteem 
him one whit better than ourselves ; nor do I deny that he is our 
equal in rights before the great God our common Father, and 
in the great forum where absolute justice prevails. I assert that 
he is not better than we, and should share the dangers and suf- 
ferings of this war. I ask, again, is it more essential to the 
slave's wife or to the free colored man's that he should protect 
and shelter her, to his children, that he should watch over 
them, than it is to the white wife and children of the loyal 
States that they should enjoy the care and affection of husband 
and father; and is it upon this assumption that Democrats and 
gentlemen from the Border States will not allow his sacred 
person to encounter the risks of the deck of a man-of-war, or 
of storming the breastwork or the battery? If this reason in- 
fluences them it is a new-found faith. They have at least not 
shown devotion to it in the past. If one of them wanted to 
give a dinner-party, and had not ready cash, under the laws, 
and civilization which have moulded their sentiments, he could 
put a wife and mother upon the auction block, and leave her 
children orphaned for all time, and her husband to pine for 
the one being that he loved. No, the slave is only important 
to his wife and child as the thing around which their affections 
cling. He is alike powerless to protect her or provide nurture 
for them: but our Northern laboring man is the head of a 
family and home ; it is upon his labor that his wife depends to 
make the home comfortable and cheerful, and it is by the aid 
of his labor that the humble boy is to climb the hill from pov- 
erty to wealth, from ignorance to learning, from obscurity, it 
may be, to fame. Why, then, shall not the black man leave 
wife and child for this war as well as the white man ? 



83 

• Or do gentlemen strive to defeat this bill because they deem 
it important that the rebels shall have a more adequate supply 
of labor than we? They all know that every white company 
recruited takes our laborers from the field, the mine, the work- 
shop. Do they not know that our power at home is impaired 
in the ratio of the power and consistency of the regiment or 
division? Has not their whole policy been to deprive us of 
labor, of strength at home, of character, and to secure to our 
enemies a supply of labor to maintain them, while they cut our 
throats, and rob the graves of our soldiers that they may make 
trinkets for ladies' girdles of their bones ? Let the laborers of 
the rebels strike for freedom, not in lawless insurrection, but 
under the guidance of oflScers who receive their orders from the 
Executive mansion of the United States. But, says the venerable 
gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Crittenden,] even Catiline 
refused to employ slaves in war. Catiline, sir, was a bad man, 
a base man, a rebel and conspirator; but how infinitely glorious 
he stands beside the leaders of this rebellion, if the gentleman's 
statements and impressions be correct, for they have done fi-om 
the start, what he tells us Catiline was not base enough to do, 
brought their slaves into the field against their brethren ! I 
have been calling them Catilines. I beg pardon of the shade 
of Catiline for associating his name with those of villains of so 
much deeper dye. 

The gentleman smoothly commenced by saying, " it is true, 
that gentlemen, by sedulously studying history, have discov- 
ered a few cases in which the negro has served faithfully in 
military matters." By sedulously studying history? Has the 
gentleman ever heard that there is an empire called British 
India? If he has, I tell him that a race blacker than the 
children of our rebel brethren, black as the stock from which 
they got them, won for England British India. Does the gen- 
tleman's historical reading all antedate this century? Does he 
not know that in the last glories which crowned the valor of 
European arms, the Turcos were honored by all their com- 
panions for the skill and reckless courage with which they led 

3 



t.:tjfe 



34 

every forlorn hope? and these Turcos had not enjoyed for two 
hundred years the christianizing influence of American slavery. 
They were the fresh material of which our slaves of lighter 
hue are partially made. Where, let me, as the champion in 
this contest of a down-trodden race, ask him — and I will give 
him the remainder of the session to answer — have arras ever 
been placed in their hands, and they brought fairly into the 
field, and failed the power which relied upon them? I ask for 
a single case. One of the earliest play-grounds of my child- 
hood was a spot in Jersey — not the State of my nativity, but 
of my paternal ancestors — called Red Bank ; and, as I learned 
at the knees of others the history of my country, and what 
made that spot^ sacred, perhaps a little of what the gentleman 
calls abolition was infused into me, for there I learned that 
when Donop was pursuing the broken American forces, a black 
battalion stepped in and redeemed the fortunes of the day. I 
think that battalion, Mr. Speaker, was led by a citizen of your 
State, Rhode Island. Where, I ask, in our history or any 
other, has the down-trodden race failed on the battle-field to 
show that it has been its affectionate humanity that has kept 
its terrific courage in check through centuries of wrong and 
oppression ? 

But the gentleman asks, will you turn loose this terrible 
population to make insurrection? No, sir. I would not with- 
draw from that race the promised word of hope. I would not 
do with them, since the President's proclamation has been 
made known to them, what the French undertook to do in St. 
Domingo. I would not, after having quickened their pulses 
by the word "freedom," and taught them to gaze at hope's 
star with tearless eye, madden them by saying, "You are 
slaves again, and incapable of being free. You must win by 
indiscriminate slaughter your freedom, or remain in slavery 
forever." I would bring the loyal men of South Carolina, 
North Carolina, Texas, and every rebellious State, however 
black they may be, under the flag of the nation, and under 
military discipline. I would give them wages, and train them 



35 

to the habits of freemen; and while they cement with their 
blood, and raise anew by their courage, the great temple of 
American freedom, our women will care for their women and 
benighted children, and carry to them that truth so mighty to 
us, that there is a God, and that they, too, are the subjects of 
redeeming grace. Our women in the North never see poverty, 
ignorance, or suffering, which they do not strive to mitigate 
and soothe ; and, by the end of the five years, which the gen- 
tleman from Kentucky thinks so horrible a period, there will 
be developed a race of negroes who will know that there are 
figures and letters and words, and will know, too, what few of 
them do in any fair sense, that there is for them hope and 
prosperity in this world, and immortality beyond the grave. 

I fear not a standing army of a particular color. I fear a 
standing army. I tell the gentleman that this country was 
not made for a particular generation, or for a particular num- 
ber of the members of a generation. It was made for those 
who shall occupy it through all time; and if Eli Thayer can 
lead five thousand free Germans into Florida, in God's name 
let him take them there. The gentleman [Mr. Wickliffb] 
said they would starve there, and he pictured it as a land of 
stone and swamp, if I heard him right. I have deemed it one 
of the fairest lands in God's world. But, sir, be it all that he 
describes it, let white labor go there, and make the black 
laborer on the soil free, and you will find it to bloom and bear 
as rocky Massachusetts does. If it be all that the gentleman 
describes it, free labor will there vindicate the truth of the 
maxim that "plant slavery in a garden, and it will become a 
desert ; plant free labor in a desert, and it will become a gar- 
den." Let them go and settle the country. The great ob- 
ject of this war, as I have said, is to maintain the life of the 
nation, and to give to the people of the future those beneficent 
institutions which, in eighty years, have made us the first power 
in the world physically, and given us of the free States a civ- 
ilization trascendently above the highest known elsewhere; to 
save l^hese institutions and this system, and to perpetuate them 



36 

so long as God reigns, and man lives on earth. If we do but 
fight out this war safely, we will secure to all the millions, the 
hundreds, nay, probably the thousands of millions who shall 
dwell here, peace, liberty, hope, and the results of these. 

Sir, I am but a poor and feeble civilian. I have done little 
duty of a military character in my life. But this glimpse at 
the future grandeur of my country recalls one night of mil- 
itary duty to my memory. I had the honor, Mr. Speaker, of 
being an humble member of that great body of the people of 
Pennsylvania who rushed to the southern frontier of Western 
Maryland, to protect the boundary of their own State, and, as 
it proved, the flank of that great and gallant array which was 
then supposed to have won a decisive victory at Antietara. It 
may not be generally known that the militia of Pennsylvania 
protected the flank of that army from Friday noon till Sunday 
at eleven o'clock. It was during that time that I lay down 
one night, carbine in hand, and gazed at the Milky Way with 
its innumerable myriads of stars ; and while I thought of home 
and family, and of the apparent folly of a man who, until then, 
had scarcely known how to handle the weapon he held, rushing 
to such a post, I also thought of the grandeur of my country, 
and of its immense future. I felt, sir, that in this great strug- 
gle the life of the best-loved or greatest of us all, or the sorrow of 
families, was no more in comparison with the cause than was the 
smallest star in all that immense multitude to the sum of the ma- 
terial universe. And I have felt since that hour that to secure 
the peace and unity of the country I would sacrifice the lives of 
the grandest and most delicate by thousands, and of the power- 
ful and muscular and least valuable by tens of thousands. 
We must secure peace by achieving supremacy at whatever 
cost. But let not the North be asked to do it all. Authorize 
the President to call upon the rebellious territory to furnish its 
fair quota. Arm, equip, and pay those who respond to his 
call. And when you have done so, the rebellion will end. 
These gentlemen will no longer be able to serve the rebellion 
by protecting the laborers of rebels, and thus furnishing, them 



37 

with men to handle their cannon, dig then* trenches, grow 
their food, make their clothes, and serve — as the record shows 
they have served throughout the war — in fighting their battles. 
Let gentlemen show the country, if they can, that it is better 
negroes should shoot loyal men than traitors ; and when they 
have done so, let them take out a patent for their own loyalty. 



LETTER FROM SECRETARY CHASE. 

Washington, April 9, 1863. 

Gentlemen: Imperative demands on my time compel me to 
deny myself the gratification of attending the meeting to which 
you kindly invite me. 

You will meet to send words of cheer to our brave generals 
and soldiers in the field, to rebuke treason in our midst, giv- 
ing, in the garb of peace, aid and comfort to treason in the 
panoply of war, to maintain inviolate the integrity of the na- 
tional territory and the supremacy of the national Constitution 
and laws, to strengthen the hands and nerve the heart of the 
President for the great work to which God and the people have 
called him. For what other purpose can American citizens 
now assemble? 

It is my fixed faith, gentlemen, that God does not mean' 
that this American Republic shall perish. We are tried as by 
fire, but our country will live. Notwithstanding all the vio- 
lence and the machinations of traitors and their sympathizers, 
on this or the other side of the Atlantic, our country will 
live. 

And while our country lives, slavery, the chief source, and 
cause, and agent of our ills, will die. The friends of the Union 
in the South, before the rebellion, predicted the destruction of 
slavery as a consequence of secession, if that madness should 
prevail. Nothing, in my judgment, is more certain than the 
fulfillment of these predictions. Safe in the States before re- 



38 

bellion, from all Federal interference, slavery has come out 
from its shelter under State Constitutions and laws to assail 
the national life. It will surely die, pierced by its own fangs 
and stings. 

What matter, now, how it dies ? Whether as a consequence 
or object of the war, what matter? Is this a time to split hairs 
of logic ? To me it seems that Providence indicates clearly 
enough how the end of slavery must come. It comes in rebel 
Slave States by military order, decree, or proclamation, not 
to be disregarded or set aside, in any event, as a nullity, but 
maintained and executed with perfect good faith to all the en- 
franchised, and it will come in loyal Slave States by the un- 
constrained action of the people and their legislators, aided 
freely and generously by their brethren of the Free States. 
I may be mistaken in this, but if I am, another better way will 
be revealed. 

Meantime, it seems to me very necessary to say distinctly, 
what many yet shrink from saying. The American blacks must 
be called into this conflict, not as cattle, not now, even as con- 
trabands, but as men. In the Free States and by the procla- 
mation, in the rebel States, they are free men. The Attorney- 
General, in an opinion which defies refutation, has pronounced 
these freedmen citizens of the United States. Let then the 
example of Andrew Jackson, who did not hesitate to oppose 
colored regiments to British invasion, be now fearlessly followed. 
Let those blacks, acclimated, familiar with the country, capable 
of great endurance, receive suitable military organization, and 
do their part. We need their good- will, and must make them 
our friends; we must have them for guides, for scouts, for all 
military service in camp or field for which they are qualified. 
Thus employed, from a burden, they will become a support, 
and the hazards, privations, and labors of the white soldiers 
will be proportionably diminished. 

Some one will object, of course. There are always objectors 
to everything practical. Let experience dispel honest fears, 
and refute captious or disloyal cavil. 



39 

Above all, gentlemen, let no donbt rest on our resolution to 
sustain, with all our hearts, and with all our means, the sol- 
diers now in arms for the Republic. Let their ranks be filled 
up; let their supplies be sufficient and regular; let their pay 
be sure. Let nothing be wanting to them which can insure 
activity and efficiency. Let each brave officer and man realize 
that his country's love attends him, and that his country's hopes 
hang on him, and, inspired by this thought, let him dare and 
do all that is possible to be dared and done. 

So, gentlemen, with the blessing of God, we will make a 
glorious future. I see it rising before me — how beautiful and 
grand ! There is not time to speak of it now : but from all 
quarters of the land comes the voice of the sovereign people 
rebuking faction, denouncing treason, and proclaiming the in- 
divisible unity of the Republic, and in the Heaven-inspired 
union of the people for the sake- of the Union is the sure 
promise of that splendid hereafter. 

With great respect, yours very truly, 

S. P. Chase. 



^ 



INSURRECTION AS AN AGENCY OF WAR. 

The periodical which holds the highest position in England 
as a military authority is the Army and Navy Gfazette. Its 
editors confine themselves chiefly to the discussion of military 
and naval subjects, and to the publication of news concerning 
the army and navy. Its opinions on war questions are, there- 
fore, of more value than those of the writers for the daily 
press of London, who are mercenary, hypocritical, or ignorant. 
Those of our readers who have had misgivings about the em- 
ployment of negroes as soldiers may be comforted by finding 
that this high English authority goes even further, and urges 
that the Union authorities would be right to incite the slaves 
to revolt, for the sake of putting down the rebellion. Here is 
what the Army arid Navy G-azette says on the subject: — 

" There is a journal la this metropolis which is the reputed organ of 
the Confederate States. At all events, the paper has decided Southern 
proclivities. In the last number it is asserted that civilized nations will 
think death by powder and ball ' is too respectable for men guilty of an 
attempt to incite an inferior race to an insurrection.' The allusion arises 
from a report that Federal officers of a certain negro regiment, which is 
said to have been taken in Florida, had been sentenced to be shot. This 
passage is one of many proofs that Americans cannot comprehend the 
feelings of this country — it may be of any other — regarding the war. 
Tlie uprising of a portion of an enemy^s subjects, inferior or superior 
in race, is a desirable object to effect — it is quite a legitimate operation 
of war. If Great Britain were engaged in a war with France, nothing 
would be more natural than for our enemy to excite Hindoo, Mussulman, 
or Arab to revolt. No rule of warfare would permit us to treat officers 
engaged in that service otherwise than as* men conducting a legitimate 
operation. It is a necessary evil of a war, in which servile insurrec- 
tion may be invoked by an invader, to increase the ordinary horrors and 
calamities of hostile occupation. When, some years ago, Southern 
statesmen, insolent and aggressive, threatened this country with war, it 
ivas remarked over and over again, in British journals, that the dis- 
patch of some of our West Indian regiments to Louisiana or the Garo- 
Unas might be one of the most formidable agencies to which even our 
vast belligerent power could resort. Our Southern friends must carry the 
whole weight of slavery on their shoulders, in peace or in war. Servile 
insurrection would be a dreadful evil. It would be a repetition of the 
Indian revolt of 1857. An inferior race would rise against their masters. 
But it is an accident and a contingent of any war in which a State of 
Slaveholders engage. The officers who develop it are as free from any 
act of vengeance or retaliation as those who fight on the decks of their 
ships or in the lines of their regiments." 

There is sound sense in this, and the illustrations given to 
sustain the argument are forcible and convincing. When Jef- 
ferson Davis made his vile threats against General Butler and 
the officers of his army, he had not studied the question as the 
English have done. But he has not dared to put his threats in 
execution, and he will not ; for the doctrine of the English 
journal must be recognized as the true one even at the South. 



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